topic Talent Specialist Out of Control in Clientshttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671594#M50030
<P>I posted a job today. I searched for FLs to invite. Did a very specific search and found the few unique unicorns (I know) that I thought were great fits. I also upgraded the job for the visibility. This came along with the offer of help from a talent specialist. At that point, I already had two interviews scheduled with two people I felt were strong candidates.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>I did not get many proposals - only 5, including the 2 who responded to my invitation. But that's okay, I prefer quality over quantity.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>Then some talent specialist reads my job post, decides on his own criteria to invite freelancers to apply and invites a whole bunch of totally inappropriate candidates to my job post.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>WTH?! I did not ask for his help. I had communicated to him I had two interviews and was satisfied with that.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>The TS should confer with the client before inviting random people to apply. I<SPAN>t would help that if a TS wants to help they actually ask the client what the MOST important skill THE CLIENT is looking for, instead of randomly inviting people based on randomly chosen keywords in their post.&nbsp;</SPAN></P><P>&nbsp;</P><P><SPAN>Also, the TS said he was available during certain hours, and he's not. He's emailing me outside those hours but then not available to respond. And not responding during business hours when he said he was reachable.&nbsp;</SPAN></P><P>&nbsp;</P><P><SPAN>Is TS just a bot gone wrong?</SPAN></P><P>&nbsp;</P><P><SPAN>What a truly disappointing experience. I was excited to have found two people I was interested in. And then your TS got involved. Ug.&nbsp;</SPAN></P>Fri, 22 Nov 2019 06:32:33 GMTa_lipsey2019-11-22T06:32:33ZTalent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671594#M50030
<P>I posted a job today. I searched for FLs to invite. Did a very specific search and found the few unique unicorns (I know) that I thought were great fits. I also upgraded the job for the visibility. This came along with the offer of help from a talent specialist. At that point, I already had two interviews scheduled with two people I felt were strong candidates.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>I did not get many proposals - only 5, including the 2 who responded to my invitation. But that's okay, I prefer quality over quantity.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>Then some talent specialist reads my job post, decides on his own criteria to invite freelancers to apply and invites a whole bunch of totally inappropriate candidates to my job post.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>WTH?! I did not ask for his help. I had communicated to him I had two interviews and was satisfied with that.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>The TS should confer with the client before inviting random people to apply. I<SPAN>t would help that if a TS wants to help they actually ask the client what the MOST important skill THE CLIENT is looking for, instead of randomly inviting people based on randomly chosen keywords in their post.&nbsp;</SPAN></P><P>&nbsp;</P><P><SPAN>Also, the TS said he was available during certain hours, and he's not. He's emailing me outside those hours but then not available to respond. And not responding during business hours when he said he was reachable.&nbsp;</SPAN></P><P>&nbsp;</P><P><SPAN>Is TS just a bot gone wrong?</SPAN></P><P>&nbsp;</P><P><SPAN>What a truly disappointing experience. I was excited to have found two people I was interested in. And then your TS got involved. Ug.&nbsp;</SPAN></P>Fri, 22 Nov 2019 06:32:33 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671594#M50030a_lipsey2019-11-22T06:32:33ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671597#M50031
<P>Hi Amanda,&nbsp;<BR /><BR />I'm sorry to learn how this has inconvenienced you. Just the same, I'd like to thank you for sharing your experience with us as this helps us improve on our services.&nbsp;<BR /><BR />I'll go ahead and look into this, and share your feedback with our Talent Services team so that to help us make this client experience better.&nbsp;</P>Fri, 22 Nov 2019 06:55:12 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671597#M50031aocumen2019-11-22T06:55:12ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671602#M50032
<BLOCKQUOTE><HR />Avery O wrote:<BR /><P>Hi Amanda,&nbsp;<BR /><BR />I'm sorry to learn how this has inconvenienced you. Just the same, I'd like to thank you for sharing your experience with us as this helps us improve on our services.&nbsp;<BR /><BR />I'll go ahead and look into this, and share your feedback with our Talent Services team so that to help us make this client experience better.&nbsp;</P><HR /></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Avery, I appreciate that. I have communicated with the Client Services Team and they are reaching out to the Talent Services team. But the thing is, it's a year after Petra's thread about this same issue. You have freelancers telling you this is an issue, and you have clients telling you that it's not only inaccurate but an interference. Some TS has told some people they are a good fit for my job, and I do not believe they are. I won't speculate that perhaps one of them might write a sufficient cover letter, but inviting someone because they are a proofreader to my grant writing job is just so not rocket science. Although your TS probably thinks that rocket science and bicycle repair are the same thing.&nbsp;&nbsp;</P>Fri, 22 Nov 2019 07:04:01 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671602#M50032a_lipsey2019-11-22T07:04:01ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671618#M50035
<BLOCKQUOTE><HR />Amanda L wrote:<BR /><BLOCKQUOTE><HR />Avery O wrote:<BR /><P>Hi Amanda,&nbsp;<BR /><BR />I'm sorry to learn how this has inconvenienced you. Just the same, I'd like to thank you for sharing your experience with us as this helps us improve on our services.&nbsp;<BR /><BR />I'll go ahead and look into this, and share your feedback with our Talent Services team so that to help us make this client experience better.&nbsp;</P><HR /></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Avery, I appreciate that. I have communicated with the Client Services Team and they are reaching out to the Talent Services team. But the thing is, it's a year after Petra's thread about this same issue. You have freelancers telling you this is an issue, and you have clients telling you that it's not only inaccurate but an interference. Some TS has told some people they are a good fit for my job, and I do not believe they are. I won't speculate that perhaps one of them might write a sufficient cover letter, but inviting someone because they are a proofreader to my grant writing job is just so not rocket science. Although your TS probably thinks that rocket science and bicycle repair are the same thing.&nbsp;&nbsp;</P><HR /></BLOCKQUOTE><P>It is also frustrating when you have to reply to an invite telling the client that the TS has not read your profil before inviting you. I have the passage "<SPAN><FONT color="#ff0000">Dear Clients, please note that I only translate from English/Spanish/Norwegian/Danish/Swedish into German. I have to reject translations into any of the other languages</FONT>.</SPAN>" yet I keep getting invited by TS for all languages. I feel even worse for clients that have paid for the service.<BR /><BR />Another invite<BR />The job description said: <SPAN>The translated audio files and on screen text script will be provided in German.<FONT color="#ff0000"> What we require is someone with the technical skills to update the After Effects files</FONT>,</SPAN> but TS stopped reading after "translated" and "German".</P><P>The invite said:&nbsp;<SPAN>Your profile shows that you are a Top Rated freelancer, and the skills Localization, and <FONT color="#ff0000">Translation English German are relevant to this job</FONT></SPAN>. That is just wrong and you are using the fees we are paying to pay to pay the TS.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>Right now I receive 3 types of invites: spam invite that are send to x other freelancers, useless TS invites and direct invites by clients that like Amanda did their own research. The latter are the only ones that are relevant and you might as well save money by involving less TS and only when requested by the client and with a big warning that the results might be useless because TS do not read profiles or job descriptions.<BR /><BR />PS: Would it have any effect if we started flagging TS profiles for sending wrong invites?</P><P>&nbsp;</P>Fri, 22 Nov 2019 08:20:54 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671618#M50035jr-translation2019-11-22T08:20:54ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671723#M50053
Well I am both a client and a freelancer here, and I'm looking for something quite specific in a FL. I dont want some innocent bystander getting a spam invitation on my behalf and getting their hopes up. It's hard enough as it is without any false hope.Fri, 22 Nov 2019 14:03:33 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671723#M50053a_lipsey2019-11-22T14:03:33ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671855#M50061
<P>OMG!&nbsp;</P><P>And I thought it was only freelancers who had to suffer this blight. When is Upwork going to get it that "talent specialists" (another example of word misuse) not only hide their talents under a bushel (to paraphrase) but positively obstruct a potentially lucrative&nbsp; client-freelancer meet?&nbsp;</P>Fri, 22 Nov 2019 21:01:44 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671855#M50061colettelewis2019-11-22T21:01:44ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671873#M50066
<BLOCKQUOTE><HR />Amanda L wrote:<BR />Well I am both a client and a freelancer here, and I'm looking for something quite specific in a FL. I dont want some innocent bystander getting a spam invitation on my behalf and getting their hopes up. It's hard enough as it is without any false hope.<HR /></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Thank you! They really should do away with the TS program, I have yet to hear anything positive. Speaking for myself, only one invite even remotely matched my background/interest.&nbsp;&nbsp;</P>Sat, 23 Nov 2019 15:08:47 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671873#M50066m_sharman2019-11-23T15:08:47ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671894#M50071
<BLOCKQUOTE><HR />Avery O wrote:<BR /><P>Hi Amanda,&nbsp;<BR /><BR />I'm sorry to learn how this has inconvenienced you. Just the same, I'd like to thank you for sharing your experience with us as this helps us improve on our services.&nbsp;<BR /><BR />I'll go ahead and look into this, and share your feedback with our Talent Services team so that to help us make this client experience better.&nbsp;</P><HR /></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Avery, even after assurances from the TS and client support that they would stop, another TS took it into their own hands to invite more people, who I am now getting messages from who is a bad fit. I want a refund on the upgraded job post and TS to absolutely stop all activity on my behalf. This is infuriating that I already had assurances this would stop and yet it continues.&nbsp;</P>Sat, 23 Nov 2019 00:39:17 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671894#M50071a_lipsey2019-11-23T00:39:17ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671896#M50072
<P>They also gave someone team member permissions to my client account without my knowledge and I had to contact CS to find out who this person is. It turns out they are some other FL who now has permissions to my account. My privacy as a client is being breached. Someone needs to intervene now because I keep getting assurances and then this crap keeps happening.&nbsp;</P>Sat, 23 Nov 2019 01:06:05 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671896#M50072a_lipsey2019-11-23T01:06:05ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671923#M50073
<P>Amanda,</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>The issues are fundamental. UW probably knows fifty times as much about freelancing as all the other freelancing boards, but fifty times zero is what? Everything is handled in Upwork by algorithms, except when Talent Specialists get involved. You do what I do when hiring, go through profiles and issue invitations. In some cases, specialized skills are difficult to locate. I once needed advice from an industrial packaging engineer and turned to a TS. She invited a flower arranger. I have since refused all TS help.</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>Giving a freelancer access to a client's private files is unforgivable. If UW is going to get people involved in processes, please talk first to a few professionals about where that will do the most good.</P><P>&nbsp;</P>Sat, 23 Nov 2019 04:33:25 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671923#M50073resultsassoc2019-11-23T04:33:25ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671932#M50075
<BLOCKQUOTE><HR />Bill H wrote:<BR /><P>Amanda,</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>The issues are fundamental. UW probably knows fifty times as much about freelancing as all the other freelancing boards, but fifty times zero is what? Everything is handled in Upwork by algorithms, except when Talent Specialists get involved. You do what I do when hiring, go through profiles and issue invitations. In some cases, specialized skills are difficult to locate. I once needed advice from an industrial packaging engineer and turned to a TS. She invited a flower arranger. I have since refused all TS help.</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>Giving a freelancer access to a client's private files is unforgivable. If UW is going to get people involved in processes, please talk first to a few professionals about where that will do the most good.</P><P>&nbsp;</P><HR /></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Bill, I could not agree more.&nbsp; In the field in question, grant writing, nearly every writer on UW lists it as a skill. However, being that I'm an expert grant writer myself, I know that grant writing is a misnomer. Grant writing is an entire field within professional fundraising that requires knowledge of legal aspects, business development, donor relations, foundation relations, collaboration, and the language of philanthropy. People who spend most of their time writing blogs are not what I'm looking for.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>Like you, I searched through profiles, knowing exactly what I was looking for. I found about 5 people in my search that would be good fits. I found that my budget was a little too low, so I increased my budget because that seemed to be where they were fitting in the market. It wasn't a huge increase either, but I know the work, and I wanted to make a reasonable offer, so I adjusted. I invited these 5 (approximately). A few turned me down for various reasons, and two accepted my invitation. I have so far interviewed one, and they were exactly what I was looking for.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>The TS are searching against keywords, but, of course, I selected multiple keywords because there are many skills necessary, but aligning Microsoft Office as the determinant to invite someone to a grant writing job is just so misguided. These TS could actually be of some use if they started out by just asking the client to tell them what are the three most important skills in their search? Then they could actually be useful. It's not like this would take long, and then they'd actually be of some use.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>And don't get me started on them assigning some random TS (who, btw, is another UW freelancer, not an employee, and also not in the US, and that makes me highly uncomfortable) into my client account with access to see the things in my client account. And while there was one TS communicating with me, multiple TS were inviting people to my job, even after I told them to stop.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>I had to have a two-hour chat with client support to get them to stop inviting people and give me answers as to why random freelancers were given access to my client account. I appreciate that poor CS who had to deal with me; it's certainly not her fault, but even though I will hire this person through Upwork, I can certainly see why MANY, MANY clients probably run as fast as they can away from Upwork when they see these things happening.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>THESE ARE THE REASONS THERE ARE A LACK OF QUALITY CLIENTS! Any reasonable person would freak out to open their client account and see some random person who lives in a different country and is a freelancer, not UW employee, all of a sudden given credentials to be part of their hiring team. Clients are likely stopping in then running scared because there's no way they'd trust a system like this.&nbsp;</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>Upwork, you need to do something about this systemic problem because this is where the root of all evil lies. As both a client and a FL, it behooves me for UW to flourish, but man if y'all aren't driving it into the ground. I don't care about connects or 20% fees...but please don't scare off the clients by doing this stupid stuff.&nbsp;</P>Sat, 23 Nov 2019 06:30:59 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671932#M50075a_lipsey2019-11-23T06:30:59ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671974#M50083
<P>This is absoultely ridiculous and unnacceptable. I can't believe they still let talents specialists run around on the site after that last TS incident.&nbsp;</P>Sat, 23 Nov 2019 11:57:05 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671974#M50083iaabraham2019-11-23T11:57:05ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671991#M50087
<P>So the consensus in this thread seems to be that there is still room for improvement when it comes to this program...</P>Sat, 23 Nov 2019 13:05:35 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/671991#M50087prestonhunter2019-11-23T13:05:35ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/672001#M50090
<BLOCKQUOTE><HR />Preston H wrote:<BR />
<P>So the consensus in this thread seems to be that there is still <FONT color="#FF0000">room for improvement</FONT> when it comes to this program...</P>
<HR /></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><img id="smileylol" class="emoticon emoticon-smileylol" src="https://community.upwork.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-lol.png" alt="Smiley LOL" title="Smiley LOL" /> <EM>OR</EM>,&nbsp;**Edited for <A href="https://community.upwork.com/t5/Announcements/Upwork-Community-Guidelines/td-p/3" target="_blank">Community Guidelines</A>**&nbsp;it entirely ...</P>Sat, 23 Nov 2019 14:56:46 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/672001#M50090iaabraham2019-11-23T14:56:46ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/672003#M50091
<P>As a freelancer, I opted out of TS program a long time ago.&nbsp; The precipitating event: I was sent a job offer to "draft" a design of a rubber ball with handholds on it.&nbsp; I am a paralegal who "drafts" legal documents.&nbsp; That was it for me...</P>Sat, 23 Nov 2019 14:53:58 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/672003#M50091mwiggenhorn2019-11-23T14:53:58ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/672005#M50092
<BLOCKQUOTE><HR />Mary W wrote:<BR /><P>As a freelancer, I opted out of TS program a long time ago.&nbsp; The precipitating event: I was sent a job offer to "draft" a design of a rubber ball with handholds on it.&nbsp; I am a paralegal who "drafts" legal documents.&nbsp; That was it for me...</P><HR /></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I thought I opted out, yet there seem to be periods where I receive a bunch of invites.&nbsp;</P>Sat, 23 Nov 2019 15:04:31 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/672005#M50092m_sharman2019-11-23T15:04:31ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/673613#M50204
<P>Hi Amanda,&nbsp;</P>
<P><BR />I apologise for the delay in replying to you. I was out when you had posted an update to this thread, and I had to look into this further with the team<BR /><BR />It looks like there may have been a confusion with regard to the responses that were coming in for your job post. I would like to confirm that after you had requested to cease inviting freelancers for your project, our Talent Specialist stopped sourcing freelancers for the job post. When you received the messages from other freelancers, these were all pending invites (before you had requested to stop the services), and you were only seeing it at that time because the freelancers only accepted the invite then.&nbsp;<BR /><BR />I would also like to confirm that the other user that you 'saw' in your account was a Team Lead who was investigating what has transpired for this project. This allows the team to review any complaints, and improve on our services. I understand how this can be confusing, on your part and apologise for this. Rest assured, that the team reviewed your issue, and will take this as a learning experience.</P>
<P><BR />I can also see that your refund request has already been processed. If you need further help with anything, please don't hesitate to reach out. Hopefully, this matter has been resolved already.&nbsp;<BR /><BR />Thank you for sharing this here, Amanda. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day!</P>Sun, 05 Jan 2020 15:00:25 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/673613#M50204aocumen2020-01-05T15:00:25ZRe: Talent Specialist Out of Controlhttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/701039#M52608
<P>The "talent specialists" are not just a useless joke... they are a useless joke that will make clients go to other platforms because they will think that there are no qualified freelancers on UW if a "talent specialist" can't find them.</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>I just got one looking for someone "<SPAN><SPAN class="ng-scope">proficient in CSS/Javascript/HTML." I am none of those things, and don't mention any of them in my profile. The "talent specialist" said I am a "Top Rated freelancer, your <STRONG>background and skills appear to match this job’s requirements</STRONG>, and the skill Graphic Design on your profile is required for this job." The ONLY relevant skill I have is "graphic design" which means literally 1000 different things. I am a print book designer. This person needs to have a web forum redesigned. I didn't realize you can opt out of this ludicrous "service" but I am certainly going to do so now. </SPAN></SPAN></P>Mon, 10 Feb 2020 17:21:15 GMThttps://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Talent-Specialist-Out-of-Control/m-p/701039#M52608kbadeau2020-02-10T17:21:15Z